Compare
the Hare-Clark pattern below with the pattern for
Senate elections, which
shows much less evenness in the spread
of first preference votes among the
elected candidates within a party column
than does Tasmania’s Hare-Clark
system. The much greater control parties
exercise for Senate elections is because
the Senate’s PR system inherited the
pre-existing REGIMENTED system of voting
created by the listing of candidates’
names in each party column on the
ballot-paper in the order the party
determines. The Senate system became
even more REGIMENTED in 1983 by the
introduction of GROUP VOTING TICKETS.
Tasmania’s
Hare-Clark system has never let parties
set the order of candidates’ names on
ballot-papers. Its Parliament chose
Robson Rotation instead, in 1979.

Robson
Rotation began at the 1980 Denison
poll the Supreme Court ordered. It is,
unfortunately, not yet used in Senate
polls, but it has applied for Australian
Capital Territory Legislative Assembly
polls since 1992. Order in a column was
alphabetical until 1976, and by lot for
1976 and 1979.

§Until 1941 all
candidates were in a single column.
From 1941, party candidates were
grouped, by mutual consent, in party
columns designated by the name of the
party, and all other candidates were
in a single column at the far right of
the ballot-paper designated as
"Independents". The order, from left
to right, of the columns across the
ballot-paper has, since their
introduction in 1941, continued to be
determined by lot, and is not
determined by Robson Rotation.